The Ravenelle Riddle

By E. Best Black

The Ravenelle Riddle, first published in 1933, is a ‘golden-age’ mystery set in England but featuring American amateur detective Peter Strangely. Strangely, hailing from Iowa, investigates the disappearance of a young woman, goes underground to ingratiate himself with the criminals, and must solve an ingenious cipher. E. Best Black was a pen-name for Elizabeth Best Black, who also authored the second Strangely Mystery entitled The Crime of the Chromium Bowl.Black, Elizabeth Best, 1894 Josephine Elizabeth Best Black Kelley died in 1976.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Phocion Publishing
• Release date: Nov 1, 2019
• ISBN: 9781789129199

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Although in most cases we have retained the Author’s original spelling and grammar to authentically reproduce the work of the Author and the original intent of such material, some additional notes and clarifications have been added for the modern reader’s benefit.

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THE RAVENELLE RIDDLE

A Peter Strangely Mystery

E. BEST BLACK

The Ravenelle Riddle was originally published in 1933 by Loring and Mussey, Publishers, New York.

DEDICATION

To Jere

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Contents

DEDICATION 4

TABLE OF CONTENTS 5

CHARACTERS 6

PART ONE 7

I. THE DISAPPEARANCE 7

II. OUT OF THE STORM 13

III. THE GHASTLY FIND 20

IV. THE MYSTERIOUS MR. SMITH 27

V. THE EIGHT O’CLOCK POST 33

VI. THE CLUTCHING DEATH 39

VII. STRANGELY DISAPPEARS 45

VIII. INQUESTS 51

IX. ALL ABOUT MARTIE 61

X. MR. PARKER PRATTLES 69

XI. TWISTED TRAILS 73

XII. A SEA OF SUSPICIONS 78

XIII. DEATH STALKS AGAIN 85

XIV. MURDER ON WHEELS 90

XV. A STARTLING DEVELOPMENT 96

XVI. DORA TALKS 101

XVII. LAWE ACTS FOR HIMSELF 107

PART TWO 110

XVIII. STRANGELY PLAYS A LONE HAND 110

XIX. ABOARD THE WALL-FLOWER 114

XX. THE CABIN ON THE ROCKS 118

XXI. THE GIRL FROM LONDON 123

XXII. STRANGELY GETS A JOLT 126

XXIII. THE SOLVING OF THE CIPHER 130

XXIV. CONCERNING JOHN BELL 140

XXV. MORE ABOUT MARTIE 146

XXVI. STRANGELY ACQUIRES A PAL 149

XXVII. BOBBS HOOKS A FISH 158

XXVIII. CONCERNING RAVENELLE 162

XXIX. CLOSING IN 168

XXX. THE FACE IN THE FLASH 173

XXXI. INSPECTOR MacDONALD SHUDDERS 175

XXXII. THE CONFESSION 185

REQUEST FROM THE PUBLISHER 189

CHARACTERS

Lawe, Senior...Founder of Lawe & Son

Geoffrey Lawe...Junior Partner of Lawe & Son

Peter Strangely...American Amateur Detective

Rilla Ravenelle...The Missing Girl

Basil Ravenelle...Her Father

Ralph Cumberland...Her Cousin

Mrs. O’Brien...Her Landlady

Inspector MacDonald...Of New Scotland Yard

Kelly...Of New Scotland Yard

Martie Green...Discharged Domestic

Mrs. Lugg...Ralph Cumberland’s Landlady

Dora...Mrs. Lugg’s Maid

Bert Brown...Dora’s Sweetheart, a Plumber

Bobbs...The Butcher’s Boy

Mr. Parker...Employed by Lawe & Son

Tompkins...Strangely’s Man-Servant

Simmons...Lawe’s Valet

Watkins...The Postman

Mr. Smith...Unknown

John Bell...Man of Mystery

Mrs. Baker...Fisherman’s Widow

Willie Inger...Fisher Boy

PART ONE

I. THE DISAPPEARANCE

Peter Strangely shifted his position and recrossed his long, gangling legs.

I’m afraid you’ll have to count me out, he said irritably. Missing females aren’t my province. I’m not a professional sleuth, and I wish to heaven I’d kept my nose out of the Barton affair. I’ve been hounded to death ever since by everyone who’s lost anything from a bar-pin to a South American fortune.

Well, you solved the Barton case, didn’t you? The young man seated opposite rumpled his fair hair with a quick, nervous gesture.

I brought a little common sense to bear upon it. That’s all, replied Strangely gruffly.

That’s all I ask of you, said Geoffrey Lawe, rising and restlessly starting to pace the floor of Strangely’s tiny library. A bit of common sense! God knows I’d use my own, but I seem to have lost all I ever had. As for that fool, MacDonald—— the tone was one of contemptuous dismissal.

Strangely puffed placidly upon his dilapidated corncob pipe, a relic of Iowan farm days that persisted even after ten years in London.

Inspector MacDonald is not the fool you seem to think him, if that’s any satisfaction to you. A trifle slow, perhaps.

Slow! He’s too deuced slow. That’s why I’ve come to you. A note of keenest anxiety had crept into the younger man’s voice in spite of his evident effort to subdue any emotion. At this rate, she might be done away with a dozen times before they find her!

The last words broke off raggedly, and Strangely, through a curtain of blue smoke, eyed the speaker with quickened interest. There was something here that he did not quite understand.

Where do you come in on this, Mr. Lawe? he asked quietly. Just what is your position in the case?

Young Lawe colored slightly at the unexpected question.

Miss Ravenelle was employed by our firm. Naturally, we feel the keenest anxiety over her disappearance, he answered a trifle stiffly.

Oh—yes—of course, agreed Strangely mildly. That’s only natural, I guess. And your father, now—the head of the firm—I suppose he’s all worked up, too? It was he who turned the case over to Scotland Yard in the first place?

At my suggestion—yes.

And he’s lying awake nights now—over the disappearance of this rather obscure young typist from the main office? In fact, he’s so worked up over the affair that he can’t wait for Scotland Yard to do its stuff? And so he sent you to me? Is that what I’m to understand? drawled Strangely.

Young Lawe stood suddenly still, hands thrust deep in his coat pockets, a brighter flush creeping slowly to his thin cheek-bones. His eyes were fixed doggedly on Strangely’s lazily compelling ones.

No, he said bitterly at last. That’s scarcely the situation.

I guessed as much. Strangely’s voice was distant, curt. You have not been frank with me. You come to me for aid—because Scotland Yard is not swift enough to suit you. Yet you deliberately withhold from me information which might be of value. Doubtless you have done the same thing with Inspector MacDonald. Mr. Lawe, the words were like the crack of a whip in the quiet, book-lined room, "your feeling is obviously more than the ordinary anxiety of a kindly employer for a disappearing employee. What was this girl to you?"

For a second the other man hesitated, but Strangely’s curt tones had evidently released some hitherto powerful repression in his attitude. Now, with a slight hopeless gesture, he sank into the lounge chair from which he had risen to pace the floor.

Everything! he replied in a low, passionate voice. She was everything to me!

Then bitterly:

I hadn’t meant to tell that part of it. One doesn’t parade one’s emotions. But, since you’ve seen—oh, it isn’t what you’re probably thinking. Why does the world always assume that the relations between an employer and a typist he admires must necessarily be sordid? She was so good—so brave and sweet, working there every day. I—worshipped her.

Then I take it there were people who may have misunderstood this feeling of yours? said Strangely more gently, his gaze never leaving the young man’s grief-torn face.

My own father did not understand, replied young Lawe harshly. He was greatly opposed to our association. But that didn’t matter to me. Nothing mattered—except Rilla herself. I hadn’t said much to her. But she knew how I felt. I—I—if she’s dead, I can’t—— his voice trailed off brokenly, and, momentarily losing control of himself, he buried his fair young head in his hands.

Strangely stared at the boyish, bowed figure with a musing light in his usually hard gray eyes. Geoffrey Lawe was no stranger to him, though their acquaintance was of the perfunctory sort one might expect to find between a reserved thirty-eight-year-old scientist, absorbed in his own activities, and a wealthy young man whom he has seen grow to maturity in the same neighborhood.

Cromwell Road, on which Strangely had lived for the ten years following the war, runs directly past that West London island of upper-middle-class solidity known as The Boltons. And it was in this small, park-like enclosure, with its circle of not-unattractive, old-fashioned homes, that the Lawes—father and son—resided. Strangely’s interest had first been centered on the family through the spectacular suicide of the elder Lawe’s beautiful invalid wife. Later, remembering his own healthfully riotous childhood on an American farm, he had watched with something like pity the eternally supervised activities of the rather delicate-looking English child—had seen him survive the administrations of two governesses and a tutor, had noted later his departures for school, his cheerless returns at Christmas and Easter time. Despite himself, Strangely had learned from his own incorrigibly talkative manservant something of the boy’s repressed, unhappy home life with the stern, self-made man who apparently made no attempt to understand his only child. Two years ago young Lawe had come of age, and had entered the prosperous import firm of Lawe & Son as the junior partner. Now came this affair! And Strangely, looking at the bowed young head, knew that after all he would not withhold his own services.

I’m too darned sympathetic for my own good, he thought disgustedly. If I worked as hard for myself as I do for the other fellow, I’d be somewhere.

But aloud he merely said briskly,

When was Miss Ravenelle last seen?

At the abrupt change in tone Lawe looked up, his face full of new hope.

You’re going to help, he stammered huskily. You’re going to help, after all!

Strangely cleared his throat with emphasis. Like most men of his type, emotional scenes discomfited him.

Come now, Mr. Lawe, he admonished almost sharply. Pull yourself together. If I am going to try to clear things up, I must have all the aid you can give me.

Lawe straightened, with a deep breath, and nodded comprehension.

Well, then, Strangely took up a small pad and pencil, balancing them carefully on the palm of one of his long, angular hands, to begin with, the young woman’s full name is——?

Amarilla Ravenelle, supplied Lawe quickly. But she is always called Rilla.

Her age?

Eighteen—last December.

Relatives?

As far as I know her only living relatives are her father, Basil Ravenelle, a cripple whom she supports, and one cousin—Ralph Cumberland.

And her address?

19 Acacia Villas. She and her father have had rooms there for some years. And, for the last six months, Rilla had been employed as a typist in our offices.

Appearance?

Small and slight, with a—a lovely, delicate face, here the lover’s pride broke through the forcedly impersonal data. And she had a quick, bright way of talking, almost foreign. On July 17th, the day she disappeared, she wore a black frock, a dark-blue rain-proof coat, and a small black hat.

Who saw her last?

As far as we can determine, the last person to see her was her landlady, a Mrs. O’Brien.

At what hour?

Eight o’clock in the evening. Rilla met her at the front door, and said that she was going to the cinema with a friend. Mrs. O’Brien noted this particularly.

Why particularly? interrupted Strangely, his long, thin, strong-jawed face expressing intense concentration. Was it such an unusual thing for Miss Ravenelle to go to the cinema?

Well, yes. It was. Her father was apt to have bad times at night, and she was reluctant to leave him. She refused to go with me, several times, for this reason.

Have you any idea to what friend she referred?

Absolutely none. She had three girl friends, or rather acquaintances, for none of them knew her really well. We questioned them, but none of the three had seen her that evening. There was no one else she ever went out with, except her cousin Ralph Cumberland and myself. But when Inspector MacDonald questioned Cumberland, he said he had not seen her for two weeks. It seemed a bit odd.

You mean he had been in the habit of seeing her more often?

Rather. Or so I gathered from Rilla’s conversation.

And where does this cousin, this Ralph Cumberland live? For the first time Strangely began to jot down something on the little pad he had been fingering.

37 Gordon Street.

And the girls you mentioned? The acquaintances of Miss Ravenelle?

Two are typists from our own offices, Elsa Berry and Ruth Wilson. They room together at 4 Russell Square. The third girl is a doctor’s assistant, Doctor Shepherd, and she lodges next door to his office, at 17 Wimpole Street.

And Miss Ravenelle’s landlady is——?

Mrs. O’Brien. A pleasant enough woman and evidently devoted to Rilla. Seems all broken up over her disappearance. She’s been uncommonly good to old Ravenelle, too, for the past few days. He’s in bad shape from the shock. Peculiar old chap, anyhow. Looks like one of those early Roman Johnnies. I forget which one. Marcus Aurelius or someone.

Strangely glanced up abstractedly, corncob pipe still clenched tightly between his strong white teeth, although it had long since gone out.

You can think of no one else who was on intimate terms with the girl?

Absolutely no one.

Strangely was writing rapidly now, queer hieroglyphics and whorls.

A form of shorthand, he explained smilingly as he noted Lawe’s curious glance, but purely my own, and incomprehensible to anyone but myself. I find it more advisable in my research work. Well, Mr. Lawe, you’d make a star witness.

I should, replied Lawe wearily. I’ve been over and over every one of the details with Scotland Yard until they must know them by heart. And yet they have found nothing, nothing. His face contracted nervously as he continued.

They have systematically investigated every single cinema house in the city, and not a girl seen on the evening of July 17th who resembles the description. Or rather too many who do. But none the right one. It seems hopeless!

Nonsense, chided the older man. We can’t say that. Why, I’ve just entered the case, and I assure you I don’t take up hopeless affairs. But about Miss Ravenelle’s work. You say she had been with Lawe & Son for just six months?

That’s all. But she and her father have lived in London for about eight years.

In the same place all that time?

I think so—yes.

Strangely tapped the table with his pencil.

Curious, then, that she had no more friends.

I think not, said Lawe with a little smile. You see, Rilla is much superior to her enforced surroundings and the people in them. She’s not their sort, and it’s very unlikely that she would make friends among them. She and her father are distinctly out of place in Acacia Villas.

She was cheerful—not the melancholy type?

Decidedly not. The word melancholy is absurd in connection with Rilla. So bright always. Sunny—— Geoffrey’s hands clenched suddenly. "I’m going crazy about this. I can’t stand it.

While we sit here, she may be—may be——"

Strangely took the younger man firmly by the arm.

Look here, he commanded not unkindly. From now on, you cut out the sob-stuff. Don’t let your imagination run away with you. It’s fatal. I grant you the situation looks bad. Miss Ravenelle may have met with foul play. But then again she may not. Every girl who disappears is not the victim of a conspiracy, especially a relatively unimportant young typist. Has it never occurred to you that she may simply have run away?

Lawe’s face expressed stupefaction.

Why should she?

Why shouldn’t she? countered the American drily. From your description her life sounds the reverse of alluring for a beautiful, eighteen-year-old girl. She would not be the first to dread poverty and drudgery!

Geoffrey Lawe shook his head incredulously.

I know it wasn’t that. She never complained. And I don’t believe she minded poverty for herself—just for her father. Besides, if she had run away, she would have taken her clothes. No, you can count that out.

Strangely gave a grim smile.

In my work, everything is a possibility till proven otherwise, he said. However, you are probably right, and we must hunt some other solution for our problem. He glanced once more over his odd-looking notes.

There doesn’t seem to be much to go on thus far. But at least it’s a beginning. Put on your hat now, and we’ll start.

Start where? inquired Lawe as he complied.

My dear fellow, replied Strangely with a characteristic little curl of the lips, the first thing, according to Hoyle (or rather, according to Doyle) is to visit the scene of the crime. As far as we yet know, there has been no crime. But we can at least visit the scene of the disappearance!

II. OUT OF THE STORM

Acacia Villas proved to be a narrow, rather dingy passageway between two more pretentious streets, and No. 19 the very picture of neat, poverty-stricken respectability. The two callers rang several times before the door finally was opened by a stout, red-faced woman who greeted them breathlessly.

Your pardon, gentlemen, she said, but it’s to the top of the house I was, tending the poor lone soul there. Oh, good evenin’, Mr. Lawe. ‘Tis yerself, is it? I couldn’t rightly tell for the shaddy on yer face. It’s Mister Ravenelle you’re wantin’ to see, I don’t doubt.

Not this time, Mrs. O’Brien. But how is he? inquired Lawe as they followed her into the clean, bare hallway odorous of tea and mutton chops.

He’s worse, and that’s the truth, Mister Lawe. Not a morsel would he eat, and me cookin’ it so careful with me own two hands, along of being without help the day. Like an immidge he lays there, with a froze look that fair chills the marrow. And every onct in a while he gives a moan, like. A very corp he looks, and I’m thinkin’ he’s not long for the world at all. She shook her head sadly.

Upon her last words Strangely pushed his long awkward form further into the light.

Mrs. O’Brien, he said pleasantly, with the slightly nasal twang that his long residence abroad had done nothing to modify, my name is Strangely. As you know, Mr. Lawe is most anxious about the fate of Miss Ravenelle, and I am eager to help him. I guess you are, too. Now isn’t there some quiet place where we can sit while you tell us all you know about the young lady and her father?

Indeed and there is, replied Mrs. O’Brien heartily, succumbing at once to the charm of the tall American’s manner. Walk yerselves right into me sitting-room.

She bustled through the long, dim hallway into a bright enough little cubby-hole at the end. Here everything, though old, was neat and shining, while a red checked table-cover gave a cheery aspect to the place. Several small paintings hung on the wall, and a life-size crayon portrait of the late O’Brien stood on an easel near the tiny, glowing fireplace.

They seated themselves before the blaze, for, although it was just past mid-July, the evening—like so many in England—was raw and cold, and the warmth from the small grate most acceptable.

Strangely immediately settled back, his long legs wound twice around each other in a favorite contortionist attitude, with the left foot hooked about the right ankle. His hands were clasped across his chest and his eyes thoughtfully narrowed.

Now then, he began, when did the Ravenelles come to you?

Mrs. O’Brien cleared her throat impressively.

‘Twas eight years ago come Januwery, she said slowly. I mind well the day—a bitter cold one, with rain and fog to boot. Along about nine of the evening come a ring at the bell, and when I opened to it, there was three persons fair blown into the hall. Half-froze they was, and wet. Himself was alive at the time, and when he see that one of the men was a cripple, nawthing would do but that he must carry him in, in his great strong arms, to our bit of a fire. Old Ravenelle, it was, Mr. La we. Just as you see him now, but a fine handsome man for all of his twisted limbs. ‘Tother was short and dark with a foreign look to him, though he spoke like you or meself. A thick, black beard he had on his face, and O’Brien—who’d follied the sea as a lad—said he’d the look of a sailor. The third was the young child, Miss Rilla, a poor half-starved lookin’ creature, but even so a sweet, pretty way with her.

She paused to wipe her eyes vigorously, and Lawe stirred impatiently in his chair.

Well, she went on, the dark man explained—for what with cold and all, the others was too bad off to speak—that ‘twas passin’ he’d been when he come on the two poor souls of them crouched up in a doorway, Mister Ravenelle proper beat and the childeen cryin’ so pitiful that he could do naught but stop. The old man grabbed at him, and says he, ‘For the love of God find us shelter,’ he says, ‘for I fear I’m going to die.’ Well, the sailor man, a stranger himself, had see me sign but a short ways down the street, and ‘twas any port in a storm, so to speak. So he brought them and left them. Nor he wouldn’t stay for a cup of tea and a drop of rum, even—there’s naught like a bit of tea and rum to heat a body after the cold—and we never see him again.

And Rilla? questioned Lawe eagerly.

"Well, I give the poor lamb some hot milk, and she fell asleep in the great chair there, and betwixt O’Brien and me we got the old one up the stairs to bed. He was a main sick man, gentlemen, but he pulled through, and they’ve been here ever since. They couldn’t pay much, so I give them the top floor back, though with him a cripple and all ‘twas a rare bad climb. But ‘twas all I could do, and never yet have I raised the rent on them, though the good Lord knows, what with the cost of things now, ‘tis all a body can do to keep soul and stummick together. With the bit they ate, and what-not, they was easy to care for. Prompt pay, too, though it fair hurt me heart to see the creatures hand out their guinea a week from their little old pokkie-book. It seemed like they got letters from some place—Folkestone, I believe—for some years, and there must have been a bit of money in them, I’m thinkin’. For finally they stopped comin’, and then one night Miss Rilla—she was risin’ sixteen then and sweet as the dawn—comes in on me and says, ‘Mrs. O’Brien dear,’ she says, ‘I’ve got to work. There’s no more money,’ says she, ‘and there’s nothing poor Father can do. Now where shall I go?’ Well, gentlemen, the good Lord pervides. And this time he pervided the lady typewriter on the second floor front.

I knowed full well she’d one of the machines, along of the other lodgers complainin’, the way she kept them from sleepin’ at nights. Well, she’s left long since, and I’ve never let another of the contraptions enter me house. But she served her purpose, gentlemen. I rejuced her rent a tidy bit while she learned Miss Rilla to work. And that’s the story, gentlemen. That’s all I know!

She settled back with a long breath.

Thank you, Mrs. O’Brien, said Strangely, who had listened patiently, as was his invariable custom with garrulous witnesses. You have told your story very clearly. And now we come to July 17th, the day, or rather the night, of the disappearance. I understand you saw Miss Ravenelle at eight o’clock, and were, as far as we know, the last person to see her that night.

True, sir, replied the woman quickly, with all the volubility and willingness to talk that characterizes her race; yet somehow Strangely had the feeling that she was carefully choosing her words. "I’d been to the corner pillar box to